Wilkie Collins 
Dead Alive 

In this 1874 novella by Wilkie Collins, the celebrated British writer of sensation fiction tells the tale of two brothers sentenced to be executed for having committed a murder that never occurred, and of the energetic Naomi Colebrooks efforts to ferret out the truth and save the two innocents. As editor Anna Clark observes, Collinss work is both a compelling legal sensation thriller and an important transatlantic commentary on American life. Along with the text itself and an illuminating introduction, Clark provides a range of background materials-including documents from the real-life murder trial that inspired the novella-in order to set the work in its historical context.